


Where Thy Dark Eye Glances

by garnettrees



Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Adorkable, Alternate Universe, Angry Erik, Charles Is a Darling, Ghosts, Haunting, Horror, M/M, Metaphysics, Mother-Son Relationship, Motherhood, Non-pairing character death, Postpartum Depression, Romance, Supernatural Elements, Suspense, Tiny Baby Psychics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-10-03
Updated: 2012-10-03
Packaged: 2017-11-15 13:42:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/527926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/garnettrees/pseuds/garnettrees
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If only it was the house that was haunted, or some war-era antique. If only it were the room, or the grounds-- something she could wave away with holy water or burning sage. </p><p>Sharon Xavier knows it's not the little Cambridge row house, or the mansion, or anything else that's haunted. </p><p>It's her son.</p><p>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where Thy Dark Eye Glances

**Author's Note:**

> TW: brief mentions of war, discussion of death, (hopefully compassionate) portrayal of postpartum depression.
> 
>  
> 
> .

_"Now all my hours are trances;_  
and all my nightly dreams  
are where thy dark eye glances,  
and where thy footsteps gleam."  
\- "To One in Paradise", Edgar Allan Poe

*

Sharon Xavier loved her son. 

She loved him, but… loving Charles took work. 

No one warned her about _that_ aspect of being a mother. That her body could produce another being so dear yet so foreign, a little stranger who reached out to her with trusting hands. Perhaps the very fact it took effort meant she was ill-suited to the task. Certainly, she'd made sure Charles was her only child-- she had produced that hallowed first-born son, and she had her hands full with him besides. Now, she wondered if that might not have helped. She'd lost him now; he was all but gone, and who could say when the losing started? Attritionwas warfare designed for the long-term, to wear down and weaken and over-run. She was old enough to remember the red blaze of bombs, and the hush-quiet of an island scuttling about under siege. No strategist, she-- couldn't even play well at bridge, though one in her position was required to have a good poker face.

Would that have helped hold Charles here? A little brother or sister to keep him company, to add a ruckus of rivalry and affection to the stillness of his library hideaways. Another voice, to drown out any bone dry whispers that might visit over old tomes and midnight oil. Charles was such a sweet, compassionate child. He would have loved someone to look after.

 

He was, she thought presently-- with a wry smile that felt like glass-- exactly the type to take in strays.

 

She may find him yet, having one last birthday drink on the chill veranda, or passed out in their ornate Alpine suite. Buttons undone, cufflinks mismatched, smelling of a fine and smokey high. She'd even take him stumbling in at some ungodly hour, hair mussed and neck marked up-- one of _those_ nights that obviously had more in common with classical Roman festivities than ordinary debauchery. If he thought she didn't see through the parade of shapely redheads and coy brunettes, presentable society girls she herself had once flung towards him… well, everyone had a capacity for self-deception. Wouldn't she know? The gentleman, that _creature_, he left with wasn't a one night fling, not some bit of rough or whatever the kids were calling it now. She saw the way Lehnsherr's hand lingered at the small of her son's back, touching his spine through his silk dress shirt. _Should have warned him_ , she thought, and then laughed aloud. What mother concerned herself with _those_ sorts of boys, if she had a good son?

And Charles was good-- so much so it hurt sometimes. So much better than either she or Brian, so much more than the sum of their parts. Brilliance shaded with empathy, with an honesty she could never afford and a compassion Brian never quite grasped. Other society mothers envied her, she knew. Charles wasn't shiftless, wasn't spoiled and set on spending a wealth he couldn't quite fathom. Moving on to graduate school at Cambridge ( _alma mater!_ wouldn't Brian be proud!), focused with the precision of a laser and the dedication of a monk illuminating manuscripts. Oh, he cultivated a bit of a womanizing streak, and she knew he dabbled a little in party drugs, but he had just turned twenty-one. And if he sometimes sought philosophy and revelation at the clear end of a bottle?  
Sharon was hardly in a position to judge. 

He was a model son-- polite and perhaps overly academic, but he never embarrassed her, or made a spectacle, or allowed some of his more… exotic proclivities to be known. Charles was affable and pleasant, sometimes irritatingly so, but everyone around him was drawn to that warmth. She'd caught sight of the stranger-- _Lehnsherr_ \-- before his own eyes had met Charles'. It had given her a chill in along the spine, a foreboding like the zephyr come to steal her son away. 

 

If it sounded like supernatural claptrap, then so be it! She had spent too many years using the glittering world she'd grown up in as though it were a shield. Now it was too late; perhaps it had been too late for a very long time, but she had not wanted to see. Barcelona, Monte Carlo-- she'd been there for the society and not for the dice, but these were bad odds. And what was the cure for long odds, if not the blush of wine, or the golden brown haze of bourbon? 

She had-- she _did_, present tense please-- loved Charles as best she had been able. He had been a wanted baby, a welcome one. She might never have expected a son quite like the one she ended up with, but no family was ever perfectly matched. In all probability, she wouldn't have been Charles' first choice for a mother, either. 

And no one had never expected _him_. 

 

She'd been young when Charles was conceived. Not _too_ young, of course, but still in that flush of fresh womanhood that had made her such a beautiful bride. It made all the society pages-- would have done so with her name alone. Brian's family, however, had made a great deal of money during the war, even if their current heir chose genetics over commerce. Money was money-- noveau riche or old guard. 

She'd left the Women's College without completing her degree. Brian finished up at Cambridge, and shortly became a professor in his own right. Genetics was the coming thing, she told her mother, hiding her peony-pink smile behind a tea cup. He was brilliant-- a veritable Picaso of DNA and nucleotides! Several research firms and corporations had courted him. Brian, as verdant and clinging as the proverbial ivy league, wanted academia. And she wanted him to be happy.

Oh, she had loved that dear, foolish scientist so.

 

The pregnancy had actually been remarkably smooth. A breeze. Morning sickness, yes, but not all that much of it. Brian (who could be perfectly thick-headed about some things), was remarkably understanding. He rubbed her shoulders, brought her lemon-lime soda, even combed her hair when migraines came on-- that always did the trick. Not to be immodest, but she'd looked perfectly charming in the tailored maternity suits that were then _en vogue_. She'd carried low-- one did that with boys-- but with A-line jackets, she'd actually looked quite trim. Swim suits for women 'in her condition' had also become more acceptable. Sharon remembered long hours lounging by the pool, feeling the refreshing Hamptons breeze, while the sky above her stretched the most peerless shade of aqua blue. 

So there had been no evil faeries, no ominous crows to caw, or ravens perched on stately busts. She had not pricked her finger, and none in her social circle would have _dared_ pronounce doom. Everything had been fine. Just as fine as dandelion wine-- or so Brian would occasionally sing to her in his deep 'beatnik' voice. The man could _not_ sing, but it always made her laugh. 

 

Not a bad delivery either. She'd had the best obstetrician in Cambridge; he could have been a prophet, he picked the date so well. She'd been soundly back in England, the air just taking on the barest twinge of autumn chill. There was her little hospital bag, all packed, and someone to ring Brian down at the lab directly. It hurt, of course-- what she remembers of it-- but it had been in a nice clean hospital, and everything had been routine. 

With Brian's sandy hair and her own blond locks, she'd expected a healthy golden baby, all hazel eyes and peach fuzz for a crown. There's no doubt Brian could have worked up endless inheritance charts to prove her wrong, if she'd let him-- and for every possible characteristic. That still wouldn't have changed the pastel vision of her rosy-cheeked babe. If she was honest, that image had been behind her heart since she first sat down to play dollies and tea, and had lasted far longer too. 'Kenneth' would be a good name, with 'Kip' for short-- dignified _and_ darling. 

 

That's not to say Charles was an ugly baby-- oh, by no means! He was a Botticelli cherub, with his smooth limbs and lovely clear brow. That dusting of dark auburn hair was so soft, and his mouth always looked like he'd somehow had at a jar of strawberry jam. He was a beautiful baby-- everyone said so. 

He was so _pale_ though, and tiny. From the moment he opened his startling blue eyes, she'd known he wasn't a 'Kenneth' or a 'Kip'. He wasn't a Bradley, or a Collin, or even a Brian Jr. 

Her own Brian had come straight from the lab, still in grubby bow-tie and white coverall, his hair just a _little_ too long to be respectable. Take him out of his frumpy academic clothes and he'd be stopped for a hippy on the street, honestly. He'd fussed over her, and then over the boy (he might be highly cerebral, but he was still very gratified with a son). Holding the baby in those ink-stained hands (while the nurses gasped and tried to show him a better way), Brian had grinned boyishly and proclaimed:

_"Upon a falstood wrought of gold,  
Sits Charlemagne, great king of old!"_

She'd told him the French didn't appreciate having their poetry butchered, but 'Charles' it had been.

 

Sharon herself didn't give much credence to prophecy or portent. Like tea leaves and crystal balls, like Sir Conan Doyle's faeries, it was all a lot of vague wish-wash. Smoke and mirrors. Yet, she had looked into her new son's-- into Charles'-- eyes, and she had not seen a blank slate.  
 _'Old soul,'_ she thought, as he stared placidly back at her. 

 

She ought to have been savoring the silence. 

 

 

Charles _cried_. Dear God, you'd think she wasn't speaking English, the way absolutely _no one_ understood. From the moment they brought him back to their lovely high street row house, Charles had _howled_. He cried in the first faint light of the morning, and deep into the watches of the night. He cried if you held him, and if you put him down. He cried when he'd just been fed, and when the time came 'round again; if you sang to him, or rocked him, or ignored him to settle in. 

How on Earth did something so small make so much noise? It was a wonder he never dehydrated, with all those endless tears. On and on, like his heart was breaking, and nothing she did seemed to help.

Sharon _wanted_ that oft-praised bond of mother and child. She kept holding her breath, waiting for it to happen, anticipating that moment it would form. At times, she tried to _will_ it, imagining it as a rosette glow about her hands, soothing her boy. Still, on and onwards, it all felt incomplete. Like a stone in the wrong setting, like the thinest and finest wall of glass. It wouldn't come; she was so sad, and so tried, and parts she didn't know she had ached as if permanently bruised. 

 

She did not know how to help her baby, and more often than not felt like crying herself. It wasn't safe, though-- there was the housekeeper, and her own mother was in and out, radiant as the sun with little criticisms and free advice. God help her, Brian's mother had to make herself welcome, too. At least with one of them to watch the baby, she could take a long hot shower. She'd sit there, under the spray, listening to the sound of water on tile, rocking back and forth in the warm dark until she once more felt ready to face the world. 

The 'mother brigade' had another unexpected benefit, as well. They finally realized what she had been trying so hard to articulate-- Charles wasn't simply fussy, or colicky, or whatever diminishing word one wanted to use. The baby cried himself into exhaustion, sensitive to some pitch no one else could quite hear, often rocking himself to sleep in search of comfort. Did they think she didn't _want_ to help him, did they think her that inept? 

(The answer might actually have been 'yes'; for didn't they re-pin all the diapers she did up, choose other blankets and clothes? _'Don't hold him like that, Sharon'_ , _'make sure you support his head'_ , and _'what are you doing taking the baby out in this weather without a hat?'_ For heaven's sake, she knew she was getting it all wrong, they hardly needed to rub it in.) 

And maybe she opened the door then, though it sounded like patent drivel now. Cobwebs and moonlight and horrible shadows that turn out to only be chairs. Mummy and Mrs Xavier began vetting pediatric specialists; they ordered a nanny from the very best agency forthwith, but these things still took time. Brian had his long nights in the lab, and the oasis of his university office to escape to. _The Feminine Mystique_ might have rattled some cages, but the tomb-silent marble of Tradition was still solidly locked in place. 

 

So, there she'd stood in the doorway of the nursery, listening to Charles' cries echoing off the Sunday-sunshine curtains and dancing bears she'd chosen herself. The night was chill and close, and dark. Shadows wreathed liberally about the blue and yellow room; the vague sound of chimes drifted in the breeze outside. Sharon Xavier, in her green baby-doll nightie (the one Brian said she looked so 'bodacious' in); all dark circles, and yes she had her figure back, but she hadn't gotten any _sleep_. God, she couldn't even get the baby to stop crying! Her breasts ached, though she was bottle-feeding now-- because of the sedatives-- and everything was muzzy and awful and cold. 

"_Someone_ should comfort you!" she'd shouted, mouth opening of its own violation. Charles actually stopped crying for a moment. He blinked at her, darling cheeks all wet with tears. "I wish anyone could!"

It was ugly, her voice screeching in the suddenly still nursery night. She was yelling at an infant, at her _son_-- what kind of a mother was she? The world seemed so bleak and hopeless, bathed in faded silver. She laid down on the big, soft shag rug, and when Charles started back to crying, she curled in a ball and covered her ears. 

 

She must have fallen asleep. It was the only thing that made sense, the only thing she had later allowed herself to accept. 'That's my story, and I'm sticking to it,' as they said way back in the girl's dorm. Gradually, she became aware of the faint smell of ash or something burnt-- not burning, not implying heat, only ruin. The creak and pop of the house as it settled-- not footsteps, of course, because she and Charles were the only ones there. She might have imagined it. After all, one could scarcely hear anything over the baby's lusty howls. 

Laying perfectly still, she tried to marshal her consciousness, focus. He sounded so despairing, her little one. Shouldn't she go to him, even if it wouldn't do any good? Her spirit seemed sprawled uselessly in her body, like one of those expensive bisque dolls with the limb-strings cut. 

 

Someone stepped over her prone form. A small foot, a child's dirt-caked heel. She could see it, the skin split and blistered, as she struggled to open her eyes. How odd. She'd been house-bound all weekend, head pounding, cat-napping when she could. No showers recently, but there was no way to account for the sudden waft of deep, unwashed humanity and grime. Her fingers twitched, the only result of trying to stretch and roll over.

There was someone there, some shadow by the crib. 

 

A boy. She could see the line of his nose, still almost pixyish with youth, the dirty swath of dark curls under his cap. Then it seemed more only a shadow again, a discomforting nursery rhyme, and the smell turned sugary sweet. Sharon would never have thought chocolate could turn her stomach, but suddenly it did. 

The sound that came was less than a whisper; the flutter of moths wings, the memory of a sigh. 

"Poor little mouse." Voice heavily accented and raspy from disuse, but young. " _Liebe kleine maus_. Don't cry."

Sharon's whole body chilled-- _glaciated_ \-- silent ice strong as the wind off the Black Sea. Utterly motionless, cheek pressed against the rug's deep pile, she struggled for breath and against her fear. It didn't make sense; she could barely keep her eyes open, but she knew this couldn't be happening. The boy was a pale wraith-- he came in and out of focus like jumpy sepia film. 

 

Charles' cries had quieted, petering off into seemingly astonished hiccups and little tired sighs. It was something she'd heard before, one of the few signs he was finally winding down. She had always assumed that the baby had finally exhausted his own tiny form, comforting himself with faint coos. It wasn't Charles, or not _all_ Charles. 

" _Li, li, li,_ " said the shape that wasn't there. Little reedy bird-calls. _"Tsu, tsu, tsu."_

 

Heaven help her, she was so tired even breathing seemed to ache a little. How could she be so tired, in a dream? She drifted, body relaxing at the quiet, at the brief snatch of peace. Fear and gratitude roiled in her, settling, hardening like quartz crystal in disbelief. 

_"Shlof shoyn mayn tayer mayzl,"_ the boy sang. The melody was off-key and self-conscious, but somehow sweet. It made her think of altar boys-- the youthful innocence and irksome playfulness, though there were no sounds she understood. _"Shlof doorkh di gantse nakht."_ Then just a low hum, the sort of sound made when one could not quite remember the words. 

It was nice, though. Soft like the rug, the spread of pale medicinal lethargy spreading into her limbs. Charles clearly thought so, too-- he responded with his own little birdie-calls. A rare, high sound of babble and happiness. Those faded as Sharon's own awareness did, fraying, becoming even breathing as the baby settled in. 

Charles was comforted, soothed enough to sleep.

 

That thought followed her down into the deeper, dew-strewn caverns of her subconscious-- the land of faeries and forest gnomes-- until there was nothing at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Glossary:  
>  _Liebe kleine maus_ \- German. 'Dear little mouse'.  
>  _Shlof shoyn mayn tayer mayzl_ \- Yiddish. 'Sleep now, my little mouse'.  
>  _Shlof doorkh di gantse nakht-_ Yiddish. 'Sleep through the night.'
> 
> +The poem Brian (very badly) misquotes is from _"La Chanson de Roland"_ (The Song of Roland), which tells the story of a battle that took place during the reign of Charlemagne.
> 
> +The song Erik sings is a Yiddish lullaby, "Sleep Now, My Little Birdie". I changed 'faygele' (birdie) to 'mayzl' (mouse), for all the obvious reasons. ^_^;;;


End file.
